Friday, August 11, 2017

This Is Really Scary

Critics of President Trump have repeatedly warned of his potential to undermine American democracy. Among the concerns are his repeated assertions that he would have won the popular vote had 3 to 5 million “illegals” not voted in the 2016 election, a claim echoed by the head of a White House advisory committee on voter fraud.

Claims of large-scale voter fraud are not true, but that has not stopped a substantial number of Republicans from believing them. But how far would Republicans be willing to follow the president to stop what they perceive as rampant fraud? Our recent survey suggests that the answer is quite far: About half of Republicans say they would support postponing the 2020 presidential election until the country can fix this problem.

As the article notes, this is hypothetical, but any bets on whether Trump will try it?

The substance:

Nevertheless, we do not believe that these findings can be dismissed out of hand. At a minimum, they show that a substantial number of Republicans are amenable to violations of democratic norms that are more flagrant than what is typically proposed (or studied).

These are the "real Americans": the ones who don't believe in equal rights for all, who hate our independent judiciary, who think their "religious freedom" takes precedence over everyone else's rights, who think the press should be muzzled, who think only they deserve adequate health insurance, and on down the line.

The Republican party has spent the last thirty-odd years working toward this. Now it's out there.